In that example it looks as if the Epson scan is bad. Sounds like they were using the stock film holder - mistake number one. There is no way of overstating the difference a betterscanning.com holder can make (depending on the individual scanner).

Sounds like it. Here is what the tester said: "The Epson film holder hight was calibrated, and I used also a piece of anti newton glass to keep the film flat."

The Epson example doesn't look as good as I would expect. Even so, two different testers both stated that they got better, sharper, results with their cameras than with their Epsons. Perhaps they both could have achieved better results with their Epsons. I don't know. One of the Epson examples in the link looked very sharp.

I don't know how well a camera does compared to Epson or other scanners. You need to be careful in drawing conclusions based on just a couple of tests posted on the internet. The testers, however, appear to be competent.

Bottom line, for me, is that using a camera instead of a scanner seems to be a viable alternative and may produce better results. I'd like to see more tests before I'd draw any firmer conclusion.

I got into my drum scanner(an aztek dpl8000) for a helluva lot less than one of these 'repro' systems costs. And it takes up less space too! Not trying to gloat, but I've shot some tests of different setups, and I keep feeling that film(especially 4x5 and 8x10) has more 'dimesnion' than ANY digital setup. And the entry cost is much lower than with an equally versatile digital setup.

Back to scanners: I'm with FredBGG on this one. For a high-volume, lower quality output system, the P1 repro system(or any similar derivation/system from another manufacturer) is a great option. But for those times when the HIGHEST quality results are req'd, I(and many others) feel that a proper drum scan of a well exposed piece of film still yields the best quality digital file.

And the good news is that if you're not using it day in and day out, then there are MANY high quality scanner operators out there who will HAPPILY scan your film to your desired resolution.

indeed something is wrong with the Phase one 45. All 39 Mln backs should be better that 4x5 inch scanned on Imacon. Maybe the focus is wrong.To the Screen 1045- it is a great scanner, easy to work with if you scann transparecies, hard to use with negativs- as the most drum scanners. There is also a problem of the right RBG color space of the older drumscanner. Screen use they own, that is similar to Color MatchRGB, therefore the scanns must be corrected when Adobe RGB is used.To achieve real good scann on a drumscanner can be sometimes a long story, if you go into deep. Every scanner have they own way to work, it takes time to find it out. Imacon is very easy to use and the most people have no need for real good scan quality, it is sad but a fact.

I wouldn't be so sure - we compared the cameras in clinical conditions and a drum scan of 4x5 blew the pants off the P45. This is from Joe Cornish, a very respected UK large format and technical camera user. The IQ180 was pretty close to the 4x5 drum scan and in some ways was better (acutance, noise) and in some ways worse (resolution).

I have the chance to buy (pick up for free for the cost of rental van) a stupidly large, fully working, 16bit drum scanner with an A3+ size drum and 8000 dpi optical resolution with everything included.

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The deal has now passed me buy, someone came a bought with £250 cash while I waited and pondered.

Someone saw the same ebay listing which for reference was start price of £4.99 or £250 buy it now and never likely to be a take it away for the cost of a van the most recent auction that I could find went for £515.00. I kind of figured it was at least worth the buy it now price after spending about a day doing what research I could; fortunately the specific yahoo group for this scanner has a copy of the service manual and the "adjustment" mentioned in the listing (actually resetting up the lateral feed wire) was easy to do although anyone not up to it would be looking at £945 + VAT for Screen to do it.

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I used to have/use a Howtek 4500 which used colour Quartet 4.2

A fairly unusal Howtek then as Colour Quartet is for the Scanmate scanners. Was it a Howtek or a Scanmate ?

The Screen has been humming away nicely to itself while I have been getting the hang of its ins and outs if any one is interested in pro's and con's compared to say the Howtek Scanmaster 4500 here are a few thoughts.

It's pretty much bomb proof there is no maintance as such which is very much not the case in comparrision to the Howtek, build quality is far superior too this is not to say that you should not consider sensible precautions such as replacing resivior caps.

Potentail productivity is much higher due to the larger drum area you can easilly mount two 10x8 or eight 5x4 sheets and set up to batch scan them with individual settings.

It seems to be one of the very few 16bit drum scanners the Howtek is 12bit as are most others of this era the only other 16bit machines I could find checking the literature are the bigger screen 8060SG and the Howtek Hiresolve 8000 / Aztek Premier not sure about the ICG machines note a lot of scanning software might be 16 bit it does not meant the units D/A's are.

Now a few cons you are stuck with PPC MAC's running OS9 as that is the latest thing the Screen software runs on also there is a limitation that the maxium scan can be no more than 16000 pixels a side which is irritating given the 8000dpi optical resolution this is possibly a limit of maxium file sizes at the time the software was written in relation to the MAC OS it is however possible to batch scan and stitch the sections and it does allow a 5x4 scan at say 3000dpi at once. Note one irritating but oft over looked limitation of the Howtek Scanmaster 4500 is its inability to scan beyond the first five inches of it's drum at beyond 2000dpi I know I have one and part of the reason for wanting the screen was the ability to do higher resolution scans of 10x8 than the Howtek is capable of granted it is not as convienant as a Aztek Premier which can do its whole drum without the need for stiching.

With regard to the digitail back set up suggestions the going rate for the Screen is way cheaper than a P45 back and while wet mounting is a pain the running / maintanance costs are not at all high also the power consumption of 200W is some what friendlier than say the Optronics Colorgetters that require 700w.

Tim Parkin's prices seem very reasonable for the results and certainly for most people that probably makes more sense than owning your own drum scanner.

THe Screen 1045 is an 12 bit scanner, as the most high end drummscanners as all heidelberg Tango, Chromagraph, also the new Aztek.The logarithm give the file in 16 bit.The scanview scanmate 11000 is 14 bit scanner, out 16 bit.also the Screen 8060 II is 14 bit.the small scanners like Screen 1030, 1015, some Howteks are 10 bit scanners, the sceens give oly 8 bit file, howteks 16 bit, a quastion of the software.But dont worry about the numbers. All that A/D converters in drummscanners are better than 16 bit in CCD scanners.

to my experiences about the film agains digital comparisions:- the comparision of the details only are mostly not really helpfull, the differences between the both media are much more than you could see it on the details.- the digital files will always be cleaner and better looking on the monitor. When printed in big sizes film looks much better then on the computer, for digital pics that are printed big you need good software to interpolate, some files looks to clean, have a "plastik" look- I would say that 39 mln back give theoretical better results than a standart 4x5 film, but there are a lot of situation or reason where the film is much better medium. And dont forget: with Film you can always also go the analoge way, that give superior results.

I used to have/use a Howtek 4500 which used colour Quartet 4.2 with a dongle and ran on my very old PowerMac G3 but that was a loooong time ago.

This one is a Screen DT-S1045 AI. I think I'll go a take a look at it as it's only up the road. The guy who owns it runs a printing company and sounds like the guy he employed to run it has long since gone (dead or just left he didn't say). I also spoke to Dianippon Milton Keynes who didn't seem to be too fazed at offering advice though he also said that although these machines are bomb proof and he can't remember ever having to repair one, spares are scarce and for them to even come out and look at it would be about £1000 not including VAT of course.

I've heard of Tim Parkin I subscribe to his web magazine.

I'm thinking as it's only going to cost me the price of fuel to get home (stored in an air conditioned garage though everything else in there will have to be moved out) and it's 240v why the hell not.If I can make it work, at the very least I'll be able to scan my own crappy 120 shots.If I can then do a reasonable job of that I'll offer a scanning service to anyone who wants scanning.

If it breaks or doesn't work then I'll call some heavy lifting dudes to remove it for the price of a pint or two, though they will probably dump it in the nearest country lane, so I'm not sure I want that one on my conscience.

Hmmm Food for thought.

I had one of them, bought it off ebay for £750..A great scanner, took ages to scan, the software takes some learning. There is a very good user group on yahoo, they can help with just about any problem. It weighs a ton and takes up a lot of space. I gave my one away in the end.